Yellow Nymph, Tony Rio, 2016, oil on plaster, 13 x 12 in. / 33.02 x 30.48 cm.

Material Pressure: The Abstract Reliefs of Tony Rio

December 26, 2025 Gavin Coates

Featured image: Yellow Nymph, Tony Rio, 2016, oil on plaster, 13 x 12 in. / 33.02 x 30.48 cm.

Tony Rio’s abstract practice occupies a space where painting becomes physical terrain.

Tony Rio is an abstract artist working with oil and plaster to create textured reliefs that explore materiality, erosion, and the physical memory embedded in surfaces.

Working with oil and plaster, Rio builds surfaces that feel excavated rather than painted, marked by pressure, erosion, and layered time. Land of Milk and Honey (2014), Half Lit World (2020), and Molecular Reaction (2013) reveal a sustained investigation into matter itself: how surfaces fracture, hold memory, and suggest movement without depiction. Together, these works position abstraction as a material language, one that speaks through texture, weight, and subtle chromatic tension rather than image or narrative.

Explore our curated selection of contemporary artists from around the globe.

Naturalist Gallery offers artist representation internationally. Apply your art.

Land of Milk and Honey, Tony Rio, 2014, oil on plaster, 20 x 24 in. / 50.8 x 60.96 cm.

Across this rust-toned surface, the suggestion of a human figure emerges not through line or drawing, but through relief, pressed, carved, and built into the plaster itself. The body appears embedded in the ground, as if unearthed rather than composed, blurring distinctions between flesh and earth. Warm, oxidized hues evoke soil, iron, and timeworn stone, while the rough, cracked textures imply both sustenance and struggle. The biblical resonance of the title contrasts sharply with the surface’s abrasion, transforming the promise of abundance into something harder won, material, physical, and deeply rooted in labor.

Half Lit World, Tony Rio, 2020, oil and plaster on board, 12 x 14 in. / 30.48 x 35.56 cm.

Here, restraint replaces figuration. A dense, darkened field holds a single, central form that feels suspended between emergence and concealment. The surface reads like a geological cross-section, its muted browns and grays interrupted by subtle shifts in light. Rather than offering clarity, the composition withholds it, suggesting a world only partially revealed. This sense of incompleteness becomes the work’s strength, positioning ambiguity as a condition of perception. The plaster’s weight reinforces this tension, as if illumination itself must struggle to penetrate the surface.

Molecular Reaction, Tony Rio, 2013, oil on plaster, 21 x 16 in. / 53.34 x 40.64 cm.

Movement dominates this composition. Flowing channels of blue and red push against one another, tracing organic pathways that recall cellular structures, river systems, or chemical reactions in flux. Unlike the heavier, earthbound tones of the other works, this piece feels energized, its raised lines suggesting expansion, collision, and transformation. The plaster acts as both barrier and conduit, guiding the paint into dynamic relief patterns. The result is a surface that feels alive, governed by forces larger than intention, as though the material itself dictated the outcome.

Taken together, these works form a study in material consciousness. Rio treats plaster not as a support, but as an active participant, one that carries pressure, memory, and resistance. Whether evoking the body, the landscape, or unseen molecular systems, each piece insists that meaning arises through physical engagement. In Rio’s hands, abstraction becomes an act of excavation, revealing how matter itself records time, conflict, and transformation.

Learn more About Naturalist Gallery of Contemporary Art.